Il8 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



REMARKS OF Z. A. GILBERT. 



Dairy authorities and dairy journals have been giving us the 

 very sensible instruction that the way to retain to ourselves a 

 larger part of the income from our cows is to reduce the cost of 

 their feed. The two leading factors in the problem of low cost 

 milk, among the many others that enter into the account, are, 

 first, good cows, and second, cost of feed. In the time assigned 

 me this afternoon I propose to confine myself to these two points 

 only. 



The importance of good cows, if the business is to be made 

 profitable to any degree, commends itself and calls for no argu- 

 ment in its support. The only question on this point is how to 

 get the good cows so necessary to the success of the business. 

 On that problem there are just two ways open for action; one 

 is to buy them, and the other, breed them, and many men in the 

 dairy business find the course first named the easier, if not the 

 more successful course to take. Many dairymen are in the prac- 

 tice of picking up select cows from other herds, wherever to be 

 found, and in that way keeping up a higher producing average 

 of the herd than through breeding alone. Whichever the course 

 taken, there never are enough of the superior cows to go around 

 and meet the demand of all who want that kind. Hence the 

 search for superior cows is always on, and likely so to continue 

 for an indefinite time to come. 



Some scientific men try to get around this mountain barrier in 

 the way of a larger supply of the superior cows that all dairymen 

 are so much in need of, with the simple injunction, "Breed to a 

 pure bred bull." Just as though that was a solution to this great 

 problem ! If such instructors would stop by the way long 

 enough to consult Brother King and Brother Keene, and wait 

 half a lifetime for Brother Pember to work out his experience, 

 they would learn that the injunction to get a pure bred bull is 

 but a small measure of the requirements called into action in 

 breeding up a herd of cows superior to those we now have. 



But I do not purpose to dwell on this first factor of the prob- 

 lem under consideration, but proceed directly to the second 

 factor, the relation of feed to the cost of the milk product. It 

 is a truism that need not be repeated that cows must be gener- 

 ously fed in order to respond liberally at the pail. It also fol- 



